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Response Details

Questionnaire Name

TennCare II - Amendment 36

Description

Tennessee proposes to amend its demonstration in order to establish state-specific criteria for providers of family planning services and to exclude from the demonstration family planning providers that provide elective abortions. The federal public comment period will be open from August 24, 2018 to September 23, 2018.

Response From

ID: #368177 on Aug 24th 2018 3:16 pm

TennCare II - Amendment 36

TennCare II - Amendment 36

We encourage the public to submit their comments on Medicaid.gov as they relate to demonstrations open for public comments. In support of transparency and open government, all public comments received are immediately posted and are in the public domain. Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services staff will review all public comments posted and we reserve the discretion to delete comments that are generally understood as any of the following: obscene, profane, threatening, or otherwise inappropriate.

This is an attack not just on women but against poor patients. It would prohibit anyone on Medicaid from accessing preventive care at Planned Parenthood health centers for birth control, cancer screenings, and STD testing and treatment. Patients should be able to see the qualified health care provider of their choice for these sensitive services.

This bill would have a devastating impact on the people who rely on Planned Parenthood and other reproductive and sexual health providers for essential services and make it harder to prevent unintended pregnancy in Tennessee. Women will not stay silent as politicians vote to take away their care and rights.

In an effort to "defund" Planned Parenthood, this bill would exclude providers that provide safe, legal abortion from serving patients on Medicaid. While the attack is on Planned Parenthood, the bigger danger and consequence is that it endangers the "freedom of choice" provision, which requires that individuals enrolled in Medicaid be allowed to see the qualified family planning provider of their choice. Any rollback of patients' rights is a slippery slope, which in other states has resulted in mandatory drug testing, work requirements, and elimination of confidentiality protections for Medicaid recipients.